Image enhancement including contrast enhancement and detail sharpening techniques are well known in the television and electronic still photography industries. Generally prior art image enhancement techniques electronically process electronic forms of still and moving images, for example such as analog and digital video signals carrying images, digital data representing images and other electronic forms of images. The electronic processing operates to alter characteristics of images such as by increasing contrast of low contrast images, decreasing contrast of high contrast images, sharpening lines and edges and increasing high frequency detail amplitude. Overall these prior art electronic processing of images are intended to improve the visual quality of images to facilitate enjoyment of the image by the viewer.
It is noted that the prior art includes many examples of selectively enhancing images by intentionally applying an unnatural coloring or contrast to the image or its position. One example is given in U.S. Pat. Nos. 6,154,250 and 5,564,698 to Honey, et al. in which the televised image of objects such as a hockey puck is caused to be enhanced when presented, for example by leaving a colored trail of its motion across the ice. Note in one of Honey's embodiment the puck itself is not enhanced, rather a colored line representing its path is electronically added to the image.
The Honey et al. '250 abstract states “A system for enhancing the television presentation of an object at a sporting event includes one or more sensors which are used to determine the location of the object. Based on the location of the object and the field of view of a broadcast camera, a processor determines the position of the object in a video frame of the broadcast camera. Once knowing where the object is positioned within the video frame, the television signal can be edited or augmented to enhance the presentation of the object.” While the Honey et al. system works, it requires a considerable amount of specialized equipment, such as the modified hockey puck and specialized position sensors. Also, the Honey et al. system does not locate the hockey puck within the program video image itself, but rather locates the puck utilizing the specialized puck and specialized position sensors and then using that information to locate the puck in the program video frame, enhances the presentation of the puck.
Another example of unnatural prior art image enhancement is in ubiquitous highlighting of important text images by electronically underlining, changing color of the text or coloring the background with a yellow (or other color) highlighting. Yet another example of unnatural prior art enhancement is the drawing of arrows, circles, lines or the like on television scenes such as by a weather reporter who electronically marks important weather images to call the viewer's attention thereto. These prior art techniques share a common attribute of highlighting—an unmoving image or relatively slowly moving images.
Thus, there exists a need in the art for a system and method for improved image enhancement. As will be seen, the invention provides such a system and method in an elegant manner.